A Conservation Story by Robin Lasser

A Conservation Story is an 8-minute short film addressing the early history of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The transformation of this old-growth forest from a potential logging site to a protected park “to be preserved in a state of nature.”
Historian Traci Bliss, author of Big Basin Redwood Forest: California’s Oldest State Park, narrates the first half of the film, bringing to life the work of the Sempervirens Club including powerful women journalists who led the campaign to save the redwoods. This narration takes place inside the burnt cavern of the Mother Tree. Parts of this history are projected onto the interior burnt bark, providing a brief history from Indigenous land use in this area to the built structures that graced the park until the firestorm in 2020.
The second half of the film documents a performance within the Mother Tree and surrounding forest. State Park Interpreter I Susan Blake portrays Josephine McCracken, an early-1900s activist and journalist, whose writings helped save the redwoods from the woodman’s ax. The soundtrack includes the song of the Mother Tree. One sensor is placed on the needles, and another sensor grounded in the soil by the roots. The electric signals of the tree’s hunger, thirst, and breath are translated into a musical composition by assigning a tone, key, and instrument to the electric signaling.